To Have and to Hold
by starlabsforever
Summary: Cisco's wedding day should be the happiest day of his life, but he can't help but be overwhelmed by the feeling that he doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve her. What did he do to deserve Caitlin Snow?


The warm spring air was abuzz with the anxious excitement of festivity, but all Cisco could feel was suffocating anxiety. He stared at his reflection in the mirror- his hair was pulled neatly back and he was wearing a suit that had more pieces than he knew what they were for, and a shirt he didn't buy off of the internet. _Classy._ He fingered the silk tie hanging limply around his neck and tried to remember how he was supposed to tie it, but instead, he just stared at it.

"Oh, man, you look great." Barry popped up behind him. "Like, really classy, Caitlin's gonna love it." He inclined his head at the untied tie. "Need help with that?"

"I can tie my own tie, Barry," he muttered, and tried to thread it into a knot, but his hands were shaking. Barry's brow creased with concern.

"That doesn't look like the face of a man on the happiest day of his life," he commented. Cisco didn't respond. Barry tilted his head. "You okay?"

Cisco's arms dropped to his side abruptly and the tie slid to the floor. "I'm fine, okay?" he snapped.

"You're really not helping your case," Barry said softly. "What's wrong?"

Cisco pressed his hand against his forehead. "Nothing's wrong," he murmured. "Everything's perfect. That's the problem."

Barry waited, apparently expecting him to go on, but he didn't. After a moment, Barry said, "I was nervous too. On my wedding day. I was worried that I would mess it up somehow, that-"

"This is more than that," Cisco said abruptly. "I appreciate you trying to understand, but you don't. You _can't."_

He sat down on the chair in front of the mirror and rested his head in his hands so that he wouldn't have to look at Barry's confused and worried face. "You're not…" Barry said, and trailed off, like he couldn't bring himself to say it. "You're not having second th-"

" _No."_ He must have said it vehemently enough, because he heard Barry breathe out the tiniest sigh of relief. "It's just-" he clasped his hands together. "I've been vibing like crazy. I keep seeing me and Caitlin- in the future, I think -and it doesn't look good."

There was a weighted pause. "What did you see?" Barry ventured.

Cisco clasped his hands tighter. He was starting to lose feeling in one of his little fingers. "Sometimes, I see us fighting, Killer Frost versus Vibe. Sometimes I see her dead. Sometimes I see us just… _unhappy._ Hating each other. Sometimes… sometimes we're happy, but there are more times when we aren't."

"You can't let that stop you. If I gave up on Iris every time I thought our futures were uncertain, we'd never have made it to the first date."

"It's not that." His fingers found the hem of his jacket and scrunched it up under his knuckles. "Every single time, it's my fault somehow. I get her killed or I push her off the deep end or I'm not enough. It's always me." He laughed softly, bitterly. "I don't know what I expected. How could a loser like me ever be enough for somebody like her?"

"Hey." He felt a firm grip on his shoulder and looked up to face Barry, looming over him beside the chair. "She loves you, Cisco. She loves you so much."

"I know she does." He pinched the bridge of his nose. That was the problem.

Barry started to say something, but he was interrupted by a cheery knock on the door. "Come in," Barry called. The door popped open, revealing Iris in the doorway. She was quite a picture in the pale yellow bridesmaid dress that she and Caitlin had picked out, with a bright yellow flower tucked into her dark hair.

"Hey Bar, "she said cheerily. "Hey Cis-" She froze, taking in their faces. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." Cisco looked away quickly. "Fine. I'm fine."

Iris raised an eyebrow. "O-kay. Um, Bar, can I talk to you?"

Barry nodded and followed her out into the hallway. Cisco turned back to the mirror, trying to compose himself. Barry was right; he looked like a million bucks, but appearances were superficial. He could pull his hair back and put on fancy suits and look like somebody worthy of such an amazing wife. Somebody that Caitlin would want to marry. Somebody who he wasn't. Cisco knew who he was when he was at his lowest, and only he knew how low that really was. She was perfect and she loved him, and that gave him _so_ much to lose.

He could hear Barry and Iris giggling in the hallway, and he wanted to vomit a little. It was hilarious that Iris thought she and Barry could sneak out into the hallway to mess around and that he wouldn't know what they were doing. You wouldn't think they had been married nearly a year, from how nauseatingly they behaved in public, but Cisco had pretty much accepted that Barry and Iris were having a permanent honeymoon phase. The giggling stopped and the door opened back up.

Barry's face was slightly flushed and he was still smiling. "Sorry about that." Cisco rolled his eyes and pretended he was trying to tie his tie, though at this point he had no idea what he was doing. His brain was too nervous to focus.

"Hey," Barry said firmly, and grasped his shoulder. "Where were we?"

Cisco ran his fingers through his hair. "I can't do this," he said in a tight voice.

"Don't be an idiot," Barry said in a low voice. "Caitlin is the love of your life. You're the love of hers. Don't let the universe take that away from you, too."

The door flew open. "Cisco," someone said, and he glanced over his shoulder in the mirror and his heart skipped a little.

"Caitlin," he and Barry said at the same time.

"You shouldn't be here," Barry said anxiously. "It's bad luck, Cait, you shouldn't-"

"Screw superstition," Caitlin said firmly. "Besides, I'm not wearing the dress, it doesn't even count."

She wasn't wearing the dress. She had full hair and makeup on, but she was wearing only a soft pink bathrobe, tied tightly around her waist. She looked absolutely amazing, although Caitlin could wear a paper bag and look amazing. She pushed past Barry's anxious stammering, and Iris followed her in, looking slightly apologetic but mostly amused.

She walked right up to Cisco and smiled. Her smiles always made his heart stop, because when she smiled at him, her eyes lit up with so much warm affection, like she was melting just to look at him. And when she smiled, his brain went, _Oh, hey, hi, you there,_ and his brain stopped and his heart stopped and-

"Iris told me you were upset," she said. He glanced at Iris, who ducked her head abashedly. He looked back at Caitlin.

"You okay?" she asked softly, and he couldn't speak, because she was so beautiful and she was _right here_ and this was really happening, they were really getting married and he was gonna screw it up somehow-

" _Cisco."_ Her freezing fingers brushed against his face. "What's wrong?"

Her eyes were so soft and concerned that he wanted to cry. It must have shown, because Iris said hastily, "We'll give you guys the room," and dragged Barry out by his coat sleeve.

The door swung shut behind them, and Caitlin placed a hand on his elbow. "Sit," she said, and he did. She pulled a chair over from the wall and sat directly in front of him, face-to-face.

"Talk to me," she said gently. "What's going on? Is it a panic attack?" He didn't answer, so she grabbed his hands. " _Cisco._ Is it a migraine? Is it the vibes? Whatever it is, it's okay, we still have a few hours, and even when it's time, we can keep them waiting as long as we damn well please."

Her out-of-character curse word made his lips curl up into an involuntary smile. Caitlin smiled too, and placed her hand on his knee. "What are you thinking about?"

He felt the smile vanish from his face. Having her so close just made it worse, because _they_ were so close. Happiness was right around the corner, but he was so terrified of ruining everything.

"I'm scared," he said in a small, hoarse voice. Whatever Caitlin had expected him to say, it wasn't that, because she blinked at him, her face unreadable. "This is everything that I- _you're_ everything that I want, but I can't do it because I don't deserve this."

Caitlin stared at him, her face paler than before. "How can you say that?"

"Because I _don't_." His fingers found the hem of his jacket again. "I don't deserve you, Caitlin. I'm weak, I'm screwed up, I-"

"No," Caitlin said sharply, and he glanced up at her anxiously. "I never want to hear you say that again. I hate it when you talk about yourself like that. You are amazing, and you deserve all of the happiness in the world." Her jaw was set, determined.

He swallowed. His heart was still doing somersaults.

"Do you believe me?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Are you lying?"

"…no."

"Cisco, listen to me." She leaned forward, and they were so close that he could feel her breath on the tip of his nose. "You are not damaged goods. I love all of you, exactly the way you are, and I want you exactly the way you are." Her eyes locked with his, and his heart skipped again. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

His throat felt tight and he wanted to cry again. How could he be enough for her when he felt so damaged, so fragile? He was barely enough for himself. He looked back into her brown eyes and they were so full, so warm, so _complete._

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you too," he whispered, and she smiled one of those soft, melting smiles again.

"Good, because otherwise, we'd have a real problem," she said. He felt himself smiling again, but the butterflies in his stomach were still flying in tornadoes.

Her eyes scanned his face and her expression fell a little bit. "You really feel like you don't deserve this, huh?" she murmured. "You don't think you deserve to be happy."

"I know that I want to be," he said. "I just don't know if I should be."

She swallowed. "Then why would you propose to me?" she asked, and his throat tightened with panic. No, no, this wasn't the way this was supposed to go….

"Because I wanted you," he burst out. "Because I love you."

Her face softened. "Okay. So can't you let that be enough?" She touched his cheek with her hand, just lightly. "You don't have to be perfect. I'm not. But we're enough for each other, and that's all that we need."

He felt nauseous again. Those butterflies had a death wish. He took a deep breath and looked up at her. "You should probably go get ready," he said, nodding at her bathrobe.

"So should you," she said, but neither of them moved. Her eyes drifted to the tie still hanging loosely around his neck. "Let me fix that for you." Her fingers skimmed the length of the tie, and they brushed against his neck a couple times. It gave him goosebumps, but they were good ones. She wrapped the tie into a knot and tightened it against his neck. "Is that good?" He nodded. She stood up, and he stood up with her. He grabbed her hand and their eyes met.

"I," she said, and pulled him to her, "love you." He nestled his head against her hair. She smelled nice.

"I love you too," he said in her ear. "I can't wait to marry you."

He lifted his face up and their lips brushed across each other slightly. The taste of her lips danced on the end of his tongue, and the anxiety was replaced with a sudden desire to rip off that bathrobe, but she pulled away.

"Don't spoil your appetite," she teased. "You have to wait."

"You're diabolical," he said. "You knew exactly what you were doing, coming in here in that bathrobe."

"Maybe I couldn't wait either," she said, and headed for the door. He grabbed her hand again, feeling nervousness wash back over him. He felt ten years old again, on the high dive board, the last minute anxiety before he made the jump.

"You have to let me go," Caitlin said gently, and tugged her hand away. "I need to go marry my best friend."

She ducked through the door and let it swing closed behind her. Cisco took a deep breath and turned back to the mirror. Okay, so he was kind of a mess, but Caitlin loved him, and who was he to tear down something that she loved? Caitlin was generally right, so why should she doubt him on this?

"Don't you dare mess this up for her," he said to the man in the mirror. "Get this right. She is the best thing that ever happened to you. Get it right. You'd better."

His reflection stared back at him, still looking scared and freaked out, but he also looked classy as hell, so he could fake it long enough to walk down the aisle. As soon as he was holding Caitlin again, he would be okay.

She was all he needed, and she was enough. He hoped that he could be enough for her, too.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Please review if you liked!**


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